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African press review 27 February 2016

We start with The Standard which reports on a new survey. The paper talks about the Global economic crimes 2016 study by PwC according to which Kenya, which, it says, is the third most corrupt country in the world.

According to PwC, Kenya also comes first when it comes to "economic crimes such as embezzlement, bribery and procurement fraud"

Apparently, 50% of the respondents in PwC survey said they has witnessed or given a bribe - that's twice as high as the world average. "More worrying" according to The Standard, "is the declining confidence in the ability of law enforcers to deal with these crimes".

What's more, the findings ironically came "a day after President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenyans were experts in stealing, whining and perpetuating tribalism" says The Standard.

Now to Egypt, where the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni is still making waves.

The Egypt Independent says his disappearence -and brutal murder- sent a chill "through the academic community in Egypt and beyond". 28 year old Giulio disappeared on January 25. His corpse was later found tortured and broken next to a Cairo highway.

Regeni was studying the rise of independent labor unions during the 2011 revolution, and while the daily explains that Egyptian scholars "have long worked under threat of arrest", they now "fear that the pursuit of knowledge" will lead them to the same fate than Regeni.

"Human rights groups say Regeni's killing bears the hallmarks of the security services" explains the paper, which spoke to several students and teachers in Egypt. "Can we do research or should I censor my students?" asks Hanan Sabea an associate professor of anthropology.

"The change in Giulio being tortured and murdered is that the last taboo fell," told historian Pascale Ghazaleh to The Egypt Independent. "So class no longer protects people where once it might have, connections don't protect people where once they might have and now nationality doesn't protect people."

The South African Finance Minister is threatningto sue people atempting to descredit him.

According toBusiness Day, Pravin Gordhan made the remark yesterday in response to media reports about a letter from the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation "he received asking him to detail the inner workings and knowledge of the South African Revenue Service’s (SARS’s) so-called rogue unit".

Gordhan is apparently in a bitter row with SARS commissioner Tom Moyane. The relationship between the two is being described as "fraught" by insiders.

On Friday, Business Day reported that the Finance Minister had met President Jacob Zuma and had givenhim an ultimatum: "either the commissioner goes or the finance minister goes".

Business Day seems to think some people are trying to undermine Gordhan just days after he presented the 2016 budget.

According to the paper, he described the letter as "an attack by some individuals with no interest in South Africa, in its economic prospects or its people".